What Ritchie is trying to get across is that when someone deviates the norm, they become an easy target for subjection and humiliation, with her point specifically focusing on “policing gender lines,” and how the police have a huge role when it comes to gender conformity. It made think about how these larger institutions, even beyond the role of law enforcement, have oppressed and subjugated trans people of color and gender-nonconforming people over the years, and how it still continues to this day. Many queer people in America have been victims of harassment, abuse, and murder over the years, whether that be from private citizens or the systems/institutions of power that allow for such things to happen.
Another point that Ritchie brings up is that the idea of “gender policing” is what allows for the law enforcement to harass these people. The use of violence, harassment, and criminalization of trans people and gender-nonconforming people is how the police try and maintain the hegemonic heteronormative patriarchal white supremacist society. The policing of the gender binary, as Ritchie explains, has lead to very traumatic experiences for trans/gender-nonconforming people of color. It made me think about how once again, we see the police force as a form of violence and abuse vs. these good guys who are “protecting the law/citizens.” I also thought about how the police system itself is one of the many systems of power and violence that punishes and subjugates people of color, queer people of color, women, and many other groups of people. It is a common trend I am seeing with the readings regarding policing and law enforcement, and I can see that specifically within this reading as well.
Reading about the many abuses these people experienced reminded of the tragic murder of Kiwi Herring. Kiwi Herring was a black trans woman. She was married and had three young kids. She had complained to law enforcement about her homophobic/transphobic neighbor who had repeatedly harassed her. Herring had a knife in her hand, and she slashed one police on their arm officer which resulted in minor damage, but as soon as that happened, the two other police officers shot their guns at her, and she was declared dead at the scene. This happened in April of 2017, and at that time, Kiwi Herring was the 18th transgender person killed that year. Although most of these stories are never heard, these horrible incidents happen everyday from law enforcement who go out of their way to harass trans/gender-nonconforming people of color. This is why I am so critical of the idea of the law enforcement being used to protect vulnerable people from harm because it is usually these large systems of power, such as the police force, that continue to perpetuate such horrible abuse that leads to criminalization, massive trauma, and as we can see with Kiwi Herring, an unspeakable, tragic, and avoidable murder. She called the police for help, and she ended up dead because of that.
I want to discuss with the class how do we protect trans people of color and gender-nonconforming people without the help of law enforcement? Time and time again, we see how law enforcement truly has done more harm than good, so how can we make sure these people are protected without relying on institutional powers?
Zain, you wonderfully exemplified Andrea Ritchie's point of the American (and overall Western)cultural blueprint of womanhood being constructed from "idealized notions of white womanhood developed in service of white supremacy", as well as how that blueprint serves to criminalize women of color and trans women, in your writing about Kiwi Herring.
ReplyDeleteI also liked what you had to say about public "see[ing] the police force as a form of violence and abuse vs. these good guys who are 'protecting the law/citizens.'" This says a lot about the implementation and subsequent failure of neoliberal reforms such as sensitivity training for police officers.